Generally, the air conditioner is a room cooling/heating system for cooling a room by repetitive operation of drawing warm air from the room, heat exchanging the warm air with a low temperature refrigerant, and discharging the air to the room, or heating the room by reverse operation, provided with a compressor—a condenser—an expansion valve—an evaporator to form a cycle.
Currently, besides the heating/cooling of the space to be air conditioner, the air conditioner has additional functions of an air cleaning function in which polluted air is drawn from the room, the polluted air is filtered, and the filtered air is supplied to the room again, a dehumidifying function in which humid air is circulated, dehumidified and supplied to the room again, and the like.
In the air conditioners, there are a separate type air conditioner in which the outdoor unit and the indoor unit are separated from each other, and a package type air conditioner the outdoor unit and the indoor unit are provided in one unit of air conditioner.
Recently, there is a multi-air conditioner in which a plurality of the indoor units are connected to one outdoor unit to share the outdoor unit.
The multi-air conditioner can provide an effect of using a plurality of related art air conditioners, and the user can add the indoor unit if required.
The outdoor unit of the air conditioner is provided with an outdoor unit heat exchanger for making the refrigerant to heat exchange with the outside air where the outdoor unit is installed and a compressor.
Accordingly, a process can be repeated, in which the refrigerant circulating the indoor units is collected to the same outdoor unit and distributed to the indoor units through a compression process and a condensing process (when the room is cooled) again.
The refrigerant distribution process can be performed by the compressor or the outdoor heat exchange provided with, not a distribution pipe having branches as many as a number of the indoor units, but an additional distribution unit which carries out the refrigerant collection and distribution.
The distribution unit connects the indoor units to the outdoor unit and for collecting the refrigerant to the compressor in each indoor unit or the outdoor unit and distributing to the indoor units having different cooling conditions.
Accordingly, it is required that the indoor units and the distribution unit are connected with refrigerant supply pipes and refrigerant return pipes.
The outdoor unit is provided with a fan for making the outdoor air to heat exchange with the refrigerant to condense or evaporate the refrigerant with the air drawn by the outdoor unit. Therefore, the outdoor unit can be installed taking an air blow direction of the fan into account. That is, the outdoor unit can be installed such that an air flow direction from the outdoor unit is fixed.